This article was published today at 2:04 a.m
State pork units part of $1.45B JBS sale
JBS USA Pork has agreed to purchase Cargill's U.S.-based pork business for $1.45 billion, an acquisition that includes a feed mill and two hog farms in Arkansas.
Martin Dooley, president and chief operating officer of JBS USA Pork, called the acquisition a "strategic investment in the long-term growth" of the company's global pork business.
"This transaction will strengthen our position as a producer and supplier of all major animal proteins around the world, and provide increased opportunities for our producer partners and key customers," Dooley said in a statement.
The purchase includes two Midwest meat-processing plants, acquired by Cargill in 1987 and 2014, that process 9.3 million hogs. Five feed mills and four hog farms -- including the Arkansas locations -- are part of the agreement, which remains subject to regulatory review and approval.
A JBS USA spokesman said in an email that the Arkansas feed mill is located in London, while the hog farms are in Morrilton and Umpire. The spokesman declined further comment on the acquisition.
A Cargill spokesman said the three locations, along with the company's business and administrative offices in Russellville, employ about 130 people.
JBS USA is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Brazilian-based JBS SA, which also is the majority owner of Pilgrim's Pride. Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc. agreed to sell its poultry operations in Mexico and Brazil to JBS SA for $575 million last year.
-- Robbie Neiswanger
Cargill has agreed to sell its U.S. pork business to JBS USA Pork for $1.45 billion, a deal that would combine two of the country’s largest pork processors.
With the sale, Minnetonka-based Cargill would exit a business it has been in since 1971, while Brazilian meat giant JBS would get more vertically integrated in U.S. pork, becoming a significant owner of sow farms and feed lots.
The companies announced the deal Wednesday, though the sale is subject to regulatory review and approval.
Included in the transaction are Cargill’s meat processing plants in Ottumwa, Iowa, and Beardstown, Ill., which last year together processed 9.3 million hogs. JBS will also get five Cargill feed mills and four hog farms. Two feed mills are in Missouri; one each is in Iowa, Arkansas and Texas. Two of the hog farms are in Arkansas, the other two in Oklahoma and Texas.
“We were not looking to sell our pork business, however JBS approached us with an offer that we had to consider,” Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said in an e-mail. “We remain committed to our remaining animal protein businesses around the world and continuously evaluate opportunities that could provide long-term, profitable growth.”
Cargill is a major force in the U.S., Canadian and Australian beef business, and is big in chicken processing in Asia, Europe and Latin America. The agribusiness giant isn’t a player in the international pork business.
Cargill’s fresh pork operation employs 5,100 people, primarily at the processing plants in Iowa and Illinois, both of which Cargill bought in 1987. The company’s Dalhart, Texas, sow farm covers 22 acres and can house over 60,000 hogs.
Smithfield, JBS, Tyson and Cargill are known as the largest U.S. pork processors, with Smithfield being the biggest sow owner in this country and the world’s pork juggernaut.
Cargill was the nation’s eighth largest “Pork Powerhouse” in 2014 when measured by number of hogs, according to an annual ranking by Successful Farming. Cargill had 161,000 sows at the end of 2014. JBS didn’t appear in Successful Farming’s 2014 ranking.
JBS entered the U.S. pork market by acquiring Swift & Co. in 2007. The company has three major pork processing facilities, including a plant in Worthington, Minn.
“The strengths of JBS and Cargill pork businesses are complementary,” Todd Hall, Cargill’s senior vice president, said in a press statement. “Together, they promise to offer enhanced service to customers and more opportunities for employees and hog producers.”
By Mike Masterson
This article was published June 30, 2015 at 3:13 a.m.
Now comes an amended proposal from Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Arkansas environmental groups that would turn a ban on all future medium and large hog factories in the Buffalo National River into one lasting five years.
To this point, the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission already has approved three consecutive six-month bans on such factories in the watershed of our country's first national river. Unfortunately, those restrictions came well after our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) hurriedly and quietly approved a General Permit for the Cargill-sponsored C&H Hog Farms with up to 6,500 swine.
That factory and its fields where millions of gallons of raw waste get regularly sprayed are at Mount Judea and Big Creek, a major tributary of the Buffalo. The creek flows six miles upstream from this national treasure that brings tens of millions of tourism dollars annually to Arkansas.
Under the latest proposal, Department of Environmental Quality officials will be able to analyze and review the longer-reaching results of University of Arkansas geoscientists who have been studying the environmental impact of this hog factory.
The governor, who supported the three temporary bans, says he doesn't consider the amendment to be a deviation from his desire to have enough data from the study to analyze before making any decision about a permanent ban on future hog factories in the Buffalo watershed.
It's better I'm not governor (or a politician being lobbied and treated generously by certain special interests) because I'd have asked Cargill nicely long ago to remove and relocate their swine from this precious and sensitive region and made it clear we were never going to ever again needlessly put this national jewel at risk for contamination.
Sam Ledbetter, an attorney with McMath Woods who represents the Arkansas Public Policy Panel and the Ozark Society, said a five-year ban would provide the governor and legislators with some data they have been wanting before taking action on a permanent ban. "With the governor's support on this it gives it a better chance of being not controversial," he is quoted as saying in a news account.
Well, Sam, I say it's a pipe dream to believe this whole mess hasn't been (and won't remain) deeply controversial among those who love the Buffalo River and want to see its purity protected.
I'd also say the volunteer studies by Dr. John Brahana, a noted geoscientist emeritus from the UA and an expert in karst geology who's been gathering water-quality and subsurface-flow data with his team in a purely objective manner for two years, have to be considered. The National Park Service is conducting its own such studies as well after it was mysteriously being left out of the permitting process for this factory in the watershed it manages.
A Hutchinson spokesman said the amended proposal isn't really considered a "substantive change." It was submitted to the Bureau of Legislative Research and sent to the House and Senate chairmen of the public health committees. The plan is to hopefully have the amendment heard July 6 in a joint meeting of those committees. They are the only legislative bodies necessary.
One can never assume anything when it comes to our beloved river. Just last September at a joint meeting of these same committees, elected lawmakers declined to vote on permanently banning additional hog factories, instead requesting that members of the agricultural committee be included at their next meeting in December.
Well, "that meeting lasted three hours, with legislators leaving and preventing a quorum before a vote could take place," the news story by reporter Emily Walkenhorst said, adding the joint committees haven't met on the matter since.
In my view (which has remained unchanged since word leaked out of the Cargill-sponsored factory being allowed into the Buffalo watershed), the extension of this ban must be approved. Our sacred river is the worst possible place to be playing political payback to special-interest supporters or politics in any way, shape or form.
Emily Walkenhorst
This article was published today at 2:28 a.m.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson and environmental advocates have amended a proposal banning all future medium and large hog farms in the Buffalo River watershed, suggesting a five-year ban instead.
After five years, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality director would be required to decide whether to extend the ban to a permanent rule or to do away with the ban altogether.
Since 2013, University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture scientists have been studying the impact of C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea -- the hog farm that prompted the rule-making -- on the Buffalo River and its watershed.
The Arkansas Public Policy Panel submitted the rule-making in April 2014, after which the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission approved the first of three six-month bans on awarding permits to new medium or large hog farms in the watershed while the rule-making took place.
Sam Ledbetter, a McMath Woods attorney representing the Arkansas Public Policy Panel and the Ozark Society, said the new rule would allow for the Department of Environmental Quality to review the results of that research, something legislators lamented several times was not factored into the rule during the rule's last legislative hearing.
"Then with the governor's support on this it gives it a better chance of being not controversial," Ledbetter said Friday.
"I think it's a good compromise."
Hutchinson has supported the temporary ban until the UA research concludes, but he has not supported a permanent ban without consideration of the study, spokesman J.R. Davis said.
"So it's not a substantive change," Davis said, referring to the new rule.
The amended proposal will not have to be resubmitted to the Department of Environmental Quality. Ledbetter said it was filed with the Bureau of Legislative Research and sent to the chairmen of both the state House and Senate public health committees, requesting inclusion on their joint hearing agenda for July 6.
"Public health is the only legislative committee required to review this," Ledbetter said. "So we're just following the procedures."
In September at a joint meeting of the public health committees, lawmakers declined to vote on the permanent ban and requested that agriculture committee members be included for consideration at a December hearing with the public health committees.
That meeting lasted three hours, with legislators leaving and preventing a quorum before a vote could take place.
Legislators have not met on the matter since.
The temporary ban would be on Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality regulations five and six, which are the two regulations under which a person can obtain a permit for a hog farm.
The rule being proposed is otherwise the same; the change is just one sentence at the bottom of the proposal. The Regulation 5 change states:
"Five years from the effective date of this regulation the Director may initiate rule-making or either delete this paragraph, Reg. 5.901(E), or delete the entirety of Reg. 5.901."
The sentence is repeated on the Regulation 6 amendment, exchanging "Reg. 6.602" for "Reg. 5.901."
The issue of hog farms in the watershed arose after C&H Hog Farms received a general permit for a large hog facility in Mount Judea along Big Creek, 6 miles from where it meets the Buffalo National River. A general permit allows for an expedited permitting process, if certain requirements are met. The facility can hold up to 2,500 sows and 4,000 piglets at a time.
Environmental groups have feared runoff from hog waste on the rough karst terrain will pollute Big Creek and eventually the river. They are also concerned about a major weather event causing hog waste pond failure, leading to even greater pollution in the watershed.
The Buffalo National River -- the country's first national river -- is a popular tourist spot, with more than 1.3 million visitors in 2014 who spent about $56.6 million locally, according to National Park Service data.
Since the debate began over C&H Hog Farms, pork producers have not applied for permits for medium or large hog farms in the watershed, with Cargill -- involved with nearly all of the state's hog farms -- instituting a self-imposed permanent ban on hog farms in the watershed. Cargill owns the C&H Hog Farms' hogs.
Posted on June 23 2015 by Maia Raposo
Today, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released a thorough, multi-yearstudy addressing impacts from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) on water quality in North Carolina. The results of the study, conducted cooperatively with NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), show yet again that industrial swine and poultry operations are polluting our waterways.
DENR has recently been dismissive of other peer-reviewed scientific evidenceof pollution from these facilities, calling the results “inconclusive.” Now, with their own evidence in hand, it is time for state officials to step-up and enforce the law to prevent illegal discharges of pollution into North Carolina’s waterways.
It is also abundantly clear that the antiquated lagoon and sprayfield system of waste disposal is hazardous to North Carolina’s waters, which residents and the economy depend on for drinking water, recreation, and tourism. The time for this industry to modernize waste management is long overdue. The often multi-national corporations that dictate the practices of local contract growers should invest in our communities by adopting superior waste treatment technologies, treating animal waste the same as we do human waste.
Contacts:
Gray Jernigan | Waterkeeper Alliance | gjernigan@waterkeeper.org | 919.839.6011
June 12, 2015, 12:30 pm
Clean Water Rule protects national parks
By Maureen Finnerty
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers have released a new rule to re-extend protections of the Clean Water Act to the headwater streams and wetlands that provide drinking water for one in every three Americans. This is great news for our families; it is also great news for our national parks. Already, more than half of our 407 national parks have waterways deemed “impaired” under the Clean Water Act and in need of attention.
Finalized in May, the EPA’s common-sense new Waters of the U.S. or Clean Water Rule reestablishes protections for headwaters streams and wetlands -- benefiting downstream national parks, 279 million annual visitors, and gateway communities. Although polluters may be squealing in protest, the Clean Water Rule is a longtime coming and importantly, restores EPA’s oversight of our drinking water supplies, which were first established by Congress and President Nixon in 1972.
The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks also weighed in. Our coalition includes 1,083 former National Park Service employees with over 30,000 years of combined experience. Like me, many of our members have served in parks whose local domestic water supply and protected natural resources are dependent upon and often impacted by the quality of surface water flowing into and through the respective park’s designated boundary.
We believe that this common-sense clean water rule provides ecological, recreational and economic benefits to downstream national parks and communities. With Clean Water Act protections, visitors can safely drink, fish, swim and play in park waterways. Plants and wildlife can depend on healthy streams.
Congress should join national park visitors and tourism-dependent businesses and communities in celebrating what this new rule means for our heritage – not seeking to undermine or delay the rule. Our national parks are our legacy to the next generation; conserving them is our shared responsibility. The 2016 centennial of our parks is a prime opportunity for renewing this commitment. Let’s be sure we can all hold up a clean glass of water at the time.
Finnerty is chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks – Voices of Experience. She has three decades of experience with the National Park Service, including serving as superintendent of both Everglades National Park in Florida and Olympic National Park in Washington. She is a recipient of the Department of Interior’s Meritorious Service award.
From the National Park Service Buffalo National River |
HARRISON — A new National Park Service (NPS) report shows that 1,357,057 visitors to Buffalo National River [Arkansas] in 2014, spent $56.6 million in gateway communities surrounding the park. Visitors’ spending supported 890 jobs while adding a cumulative monetary benefit of $65.1 million to the local economy.
“Buffalo National River welcomes visitors from across the region, across the country, and increasingly from around the world,” said Superintendent Kevin Cheri. “Visitation is growing steadily and as a result, local businesses are seeing the economic benefits. In 2014, visitation was up 20.6% and visitor spending increased 22.6%. We appreciate the support of our community partners and are pleased that park visitation helps sustain the local economy.”
The 2014 National Park Visitor Spending Effects is a peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis conducted by U.S. Geological Survey economists Catherine Cullinane Thomas and Christopher Huber and National Park Service economist Lynne Koontz. On a national level, the report shows $15.7 billion of direct spending by 292.8 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 277,000 jobs nationally; 235,600 of those jobs are found in these gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $29.7 billion.
According to the 2014 report, park visitor spending trends were for lodging (30.6 percent) followed by food and beverages (20.3 percent), gas and oil (11.9 percent), admissions and fees (10.2 percent) and souvenirs and other expenses (9.9 percent).
Tribute on the river By Mike Masterson Low, fast-moving rain clouds punctuated by intermittent showers couldn't keep nearly 100 people and Channel 10 television from Springfield, Mo., from attending the memorial rally and float for the late 3rd District Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt along the Buffalo National River near Pruitt last weekend. The event, sponsored by the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, Ozark River Stewards, Arkansas Canoe Club and the National Parks Conservation Association, was moderated by Ginny Masullo of both the stewards and alliance associations. I'm sure the crowd would have been much larger had the weather been nicer. There was palpable reverence in the air when it came to various conversations about how sacred this river has been to all Arkansans and many thousands across America who come each year to enjoy its stunning beauty and dramatic scenery. On this afternoon, they had come for a two-mile float shepherded by the Canoe Club to pay tribute to Hammerschmidt, a Harrison native who died April 1 at age 92, for his key role in introducing legislation to preserve the Buffalo as our first national river in 1972. The crowd munched on cookies, nuts, chips, and sipped tea and lemonade while listening to music from the husband/wife group, Mockingbird, and four speakers with different accounts about the river and Hammerschmidt's hard-fought contributions to keep it from being dammed. I spoke a few minutes about how nationally newsworthy and deeply significant it is that our state's Department of Environmental Quality (cough) quietly allowed the first hog factory into the Buffalo River's watershed in 2012. Don Castleberry, a retired director of five national parks, talked about the critical importance of keeping and preserving them for future generations. Dane Schumacher, a board member of the river alliance, presented a detailed list of how Cargill-sponsored C&H Hog Farms at Mount Judea so suddenly came to exist and the subsequent and expensive chain of events that misguided act has triggered. She also referred to an historical narrative prepared by the Pryor Center about John Paul's life, pulling the following excerpt from interviews conducted several years ago when Hammerschmidt was asked about what it means to be a public servant: "Bottom-line advice is don't even seek public office unless you want to serve other people ... if service to others isn't your main goal, forget it ... I don't care whether you're appointed or elected. That's the only reason people should be in public office, is to purely serve other people. And it's easy to do. ... that's why we're here on earth after all, whether you're in office or out of office. Whether you're a shoeshine boy, a banker, or a congressman, your goal is to serve to other people. I mean, that's my philosophy about life." Hammerschmidt's son, my cousin John Arthur Hammerschmidt of Harrison, closed by telling the crowd how overjoyed his father would have been to see this kind of outpouring of respect and appreciation for his efforts. He said his father would have enjoyed being there had he been alive. John Arthur told of John Paul and his close friend David Fitton building a boat as young teenagers, then having their creation trucked to the Buffalo where they continually pushed it upstream against the current so they could float back down to Pruitt. They also would camp on the river for days on end when John Paul was a youth. "My dad knew and loved the river so much," he said. "It was always very much a part of who he was." John Arthur divided his time between a home in Washington, D.C., and Harrison, where he became a supportive son and a loving fixture in his father's life, especially as John Paul developed debilitating health problems. Speaking of my late uncle during the final decade of a very active life, I've always tried to elevate those I see as giving so much of themselves to benefit others. So many who give more than they take come and go from this strange world without being recognized for their selflessness. And that's a shame. With that in mind, I close by saying how much I (and many others) admire Sharon Huff of Harrison who, in the years after the death of John Paul's wife, Virginia, grew to become a close companion, Presbyterian pew-partner, helpmate and all-around supportive person in his life. Living only blocks from his home in Harrison, it wasn't unusual for Sharon to show up with meals she'd prepared, while freely offering anything else that could prove helpful. This devotion was unwavering even though she held down a busy sales position that often required her to travel. Sharon regularly accompanied John Paul because she cared about and respected him so much. Those who knew Sharon as she grew up working in her mother's cafe off the downtown Harrison square quickly saw and appreciated that inherent goodness and caring in her spirit. So today I wanted to note for the record what a genuine blessing this kind, straight-talking lady was to him during his final eight years on this earth. Would that each of us have such people in our lives. ------------v------------ Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Editorial on 05/30/2015
Linda Ong
Mike Pitts
05/24/2015 09:37 PM
05/24/2015 09:54 PM
HARRISON, Ark.-- Heavy rain didn't keep people coming out to the Buffalo River to honor late Arkansas Congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt.
He died on April 1, 2015 at the age of 92.
Hammerschmidt was instrumental in protecting the Buffalo River from being dammed 40 years ago.
Family members of Hammerschmidt said his love of the river dated back to when he was only 12 years old.
This passion would eventually grow into an effort to preserve the river, for generations to come.
By land and water, people gathered to honor the Arkansas icon.
"My dad would be very humbled by this event even occurring," said John Arthur Hammerschmidt, the son of Hammerschmidt.
The memorial and tribute float commemorated the legacy of the former congressman and WWII veteran.
Hammerschmidt is known as the founding father of the GOP in his once solidly blue state. He went on to serve 26 years in Congress. One of his greatest achievements was protecting the Buffalo River.
"He knew the value of this," said Mike Masterson, the nephew of Hammerschmidt. "You just have to look around you and see the river itself to realize how magnificent this is."
In 1972, Hammerschmidt successfully got Congress to pass his legislation to make the Buffalo River the first national river in America. It's a lasting legacy Hammerschmidt's son is proud of.
"My dad could almost always see the big picture," said John Arthur. "I'm sure he thought this river would serve others for years and years to come."
Right now, people get to enjoy the beauty of the Buffalo River. But some said it needs to be continually protected from potential threats.
"The immediate threat is the water quality," said Don Castleberry, a retired National Park Service Midwest Regional Director.
Castleberry said the threat comes from hog farm production waste nearby.
"The potential for pollution as a result of the waste filtering themselves down the Karst typography and actually contaminating the river," said Castleberry.
Until that threat becomes a reality, conservation groups vow to protect what Hammerschmidt worked so hard to preserve.
"This matters to too many people, the beauty of this place, the uniqueness of this place, the spiritual nature of this place to ever let it go," said Masterson.
The Buffalo Watershed Alliance put on the event, and various conservation and canoe groups came to join the festivities.
People also wrote notes for the Hammerschmidt family to honor the late congressman.
Attorneys for the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance and other environmental groups applied for $370,510 in attorneys fees this week in the lawsuit the groups filed against the U.S. Department of Agriculture and two federal agencies regarding loan guarantees made to C&H Hog Farms.
But immediately after filing the application for attorneys fees, the environmental groups and the defendants entered a joint request for a pause on submitting any more materials supporting or opposing the environmental groups' application for attorneys fees until July 21.
In the joint request, the parties stated they were in continuing negotiations to resolve the dispute and did not want additional fees and costs to be incurred unnecessarily.
C&H Hog Farms is on Big Creek, 6 miles from where it meets the Buffalo National River. Environmental activists and others have been concerned about the amount of animal waste generated in the environmentally sensitive area.
The Alliance, the Arkansas Canoe Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Ozark Society sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Farm Service Agency and the Small Business Administration in August 2013, arguing that the latter two agencies failed to properly consult with other agencies, including the National Park Service, in conducting an environmental assessment of the farm while considering the loan guarantees.
The environmental assessment carried a "finding of no significant impact."
In October, U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. ruled that the assessment was insufficient and violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The U.S. Small Business Administration and the Farm Service Agency had agreed to back $3.4 million in private loans made to C&H Hog Farms in Mount Judea after the farm was found to have insufficient collateral, meaning that the agencies would foot the bill for the farm's loans if the farm defaulted.
The agencies haven't made any payments on the loans and by a judge's order cannot until the new environmental assessments are completed.
Metro on 05/23/2015